Pine Crest Elementary School will close at the end of the current school year as Sebastopol School District officials grapple with declining enrollment and a growing deficit.
District officials have not yet decided who will attend the two remaining schools. The campuses are Park Side School, which serves kindergarten through fifth graders, and Brook Haven Middle School, which serves sixth, seventh and eighth graders.
"We have been maintaining three school sites with too few students," said district superintendent Liz Schott, who also serves as principal at Pine Crest.
"Whatever results, there will be some blending of kids and staff, and I want that to have as much time to be done well," she said.
The district has seen its enrollment fall by half, from 1,400 to 700, in 15 years, Schott said.
The district is facing a $500,000 deficit from a budget of $3 million to $3.5 million, she added.
Meetings are scheduled for the coming weeks to solicit input on how the schools should be reconfigured. A decision is expected by Dec. 9.
Officials are considering a budget committee's recommendation to create a kindergarten through eighth grade campus in the district.
Pine Crest, which has about 200 students in grades kindergarten through fifth nd is located on Hayden Avenue south of downtown Sebastopol, was singled out for closure because officials determined the district needed to retain a middle school campus.
Park Side on Bodega Avenue is considered the district's flagship campus and is physically close to Brook Haven.
Schott plans to begin conversations with Sebastopol Independent Charter School executive director Susan Olson about that school leasing the entire Pine Crest campus.
That move would be "really attractive from our perspective as far as ease of transition," Schott said.
Whereever the district's approximately 700 students end up, there likely will be staff layoffs, Schott said.
"Whenever you close a school site there are obviously positions that don't need to be duplicated at another site," she said.
Classified and support staff positions are likely to be reduced, while teaching posts will be dependant on enrollment, Schott said.
Schott said the mood at the school board meeting Thursday night when the unanimous decision was made was "pretty sad."
"There are people in the audience who have worked here for 30 years," she said. "There is going to be some grieving."
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